Cooper was a 20 year old LT who only thought he knew more than generals and ordinance officers . There was a reason he never got promoted . Also he was not at the front fighting with tanks , he only saw knocked out tanks . 60 % which were back in service within a week . The Sherman was unrepairable ...

All military rifles of the late 1800's and early 1900's had groove diameters larger than their ammo . The bore sizes were always right on but the groove depth would only be held to within .003 or so as they did not care as much about that as it did not matter as much with the long round nose bullets...

No , the bore of a barrel is the small measurement . It is the lands . The average military barrel has around 0.010+ deep rifling . So if the grooves are .264 , the lands [ bore hole ] will be -0.010 = .254 . Or if it is tight 0.253

The problem is a tight bore , not groove . A 96 Swede with a very tight bore , some are as small as .253 , with tear the jacket on a thin jacketed .264 bullet . Going to a .263 dia bullet or a thicker jacket should cure the problem .

That would depend on the peep sights aperture size , and the target . Also it would depend a lot on the shooters eyes . The very small hole on the M-1903 makes a good target sight , but become very hard to use in low light or moving targets . The larger hole on the M-1917 is a draw back on small tar...

The reason is that like most everybody else , the Italians made the groove smaller later in production . Most M-41's will measure around .266 ish . A .264 flat base bullet will work fine in those . The M-41 starts to eliminate some of the major Carcano barrel problems from the earlier rifles , very ...

Guadalcanal was the first time the US captured a large grouping of the current Japanese weapons and they did a big study . Tarawa was so small they should not have missed anything there over the years . Yes there were naval troops at both places but they had regular T-38's . I have done temporary si...

The Type I is a much more accurate rifle than the standard 6.5mm Carcano for several reasons . The sights are not a major factor . The Type-I has a different barrel, a tighter bore and groove , does not have gain twist . That lets it respond much better to a good handload than a Carcano . The Carcan...

There were no Type-I's at Guadalcanal . The US did a major collection and evaluation of Japanese weapons there and they are not ever mentioned . None have ever turned up at Tarawa and it was cleaned up and used a base for years .